Authenticating a new computing device with respect to an existing network is challenging, labor intensive, and is often performed manually by sending a trusted employee to the location of the computing device. Typically, such authenticating is performed using a shared secret that is made available to the trusted employee. The trusted employee is then able to enter the shared secret when the new computing device is coupled to the network, and also possibly when re-configuring the computing device (e.g., when installing a new operating system). For security purposes, the reliability of the shared secret is only as good as the trust and reliability of the trusted employee because the trusted employee can disclose the shared secret to others either intentionally or accidentally.
Furthermore, sending a trusted employee to enter the shared secret to each computing device when it is added to the network or re-configured represents a time-consuming and expensive operation. As electronic commerce and other operations that demand greater security become more commonplace, increasing the reliability and simplicity of authentication of newly added and/or re-configured computing devices is desirable.